


Fast Break At Tiffany's

by The_Whelk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Clint's mid 90s pop jokes are going to be the death of him, Complete, Every necklace needs a backstory, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship, Fun missions with your friends, Gen, Nobody understands capitalism like a Russian, Post - Avengers, Pre - Winter Soldier, Recruitment, Tiffany's, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1458451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Whelk/pseuds/The_Whelk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OR "How Natasha Got That Necklace"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Near dawn, a taxi pulls up to the Waverly Diner at the corner of 6th Ave and Waverly in New York City.

Clint Barton exits the taxi in sunglasses and black sweater. He walks into the diner, going past the ATM and newspaper stand in the foyer, into the Formica-paneled room with glossy brown leather booths. His eyes dart from the hand-written CASH ONLY NO CHECKS ACCEPTED sign to the booth under a framed picture of Marlyn Monroe and James Dean sharing a milkshake. In the booth, Natasha Romanov sits examining the big plastic menu wearing a denim jacket and striped shirt. Clint walks over and sits down.

"Coming in early or getting the call late?" Nat doesn't look up from her menu.

Clint's shoulders drop. He pushes his sunglasses up. He is a full grown adult man and doesn't have to answer that.

"They have disco Fries here." Nat scanned the menu. "How is that not just poutine?"

"You called me here. You said it was an order."

"It's something like that."

Clint was about to say something when a chubby waiter with dark circles around his eyes and a comically bushy mustache appeared.

"Coffee?"

They nod. Natasha puts the menu down.

"Heard you're back in action after Madagascar."

"Maybe."

"Maybe a little local gig could get you back into the game."

"Maybe."

"Maybe I wanted an excuse to come to the city and this seemed easy."

"Maybe?"

The dark circles and mustache dropped two full coffee mugs on the table before darting off toward the kitchen. Nat shook out a sugar packet and poured it in her coffee, watching Clint tear open and pour five creamers into his.

"You want some coffee in that milk?"

"Milk does a body good." Clint said with the cadence of an old joke. "Like your black one sugar is any cooler, is that like a statement or something? 'Black as the night, sweet as sin."?

"I'm lactose intolerant" Nat sips her coffee again and puts the mug to her lips.

"Really?"

"No."

"You are a piece of -" The chubby waiter's mustache looms into view. Nat and Clint hand him the menus before he has time to open his mouth and say "Lumberjack breakfast, scrambled, extra jam" in unison. The waiter runs off while Clint puts his empty creamer cups inside themselves.

"What's the job?"

Nat slides him a folder.

"Mikhal Bezos-Shaw. Real charming guy from a Macedonian crime family. Started in arms and mining, now into natural gas and money laundering in a big way. He's the prime public front for a lot of missing crates of guns and bombs, not to mention what his company likes to do towns in the way of new pipelines. Always visits New York once a year to sure up business contracts and pick up a new gift for his doting wife at ...Tiffany's."

Clint took off his sunglasses and flipped through the folder.

"We've never been able to get him holding anything but we know he makes a hand off every time he's in town."

"They think he does it in the store?"

"It's the only time he's not being monitored."

The waiter returned with plate-laded arms. He put down the two lumberjack breakfasts and syrup containers and the bowl full of individually wrapped packets of jam.

"And why are we doing this? This is grunt work." Clint finished off his coffee and picked up the fork.

"Erikvich is out sick, Cho is in deep cover, Taymor currently thinks he's a pony, and Bragason is getting married."

"Wait a second." Clint held a fork-full of eggs to his mouth. "Bragason is getting married?

Nat nodded.

"To the great big hairy guy in Accounts?"

"Yep."

"Aw." Clint put the eggs in his mouth "That's so sweet."

"I'll send them your regards. You in or not?"

Clint slumped back into the brown-leather booth. "When was the last time we saw each other?"

"July 27th. The internal review board meeting."

"Wrong."

Nat arched an eyebrow.

"July 25th. I saw you from the balcony of the DC house I was assigned to but I don't think you saw me. You where wearing blue, a skirt but loose enough for running, and based on how you handled your little clutch bag you where carrying a Level-4 pulse disruptor pistol."

Nat's eyebrows did A Thing. It was pointed directly at Clint.

Clint smiled. "It's fine. I'm in. When's the time?"

"Tomorrow." Nat picked up a piece of bacon. "0700."

"Okay good, can I wear m-"

"You can wear the suit." Nat bit off some bacon.

"Awesome." Clint grabbed the little syrup container off to the side and poured it over his pancakes and sausage. "It's not everyday you get to have breakfast at Tiffany's!" Clint mugged his eyes at her. Nat just shrugged.

"What, nothing? Audrey Hepburn? Deep Blue Something?"

Nat shook her head and shrugged again.

Clint sighed and cut up his pancake. "Worse than talking to Rogers."

\---


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Nat discuss gemstones and marketing before getting to work.

It was a cool and bright Manhattan morning, the kind just after winter relented but before spring has truly and fully sprung. From the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car, Clint Barton watched businessmen and early morning tourists flood the 5th Ave sidewalks, bike couriers already darting down the streets, smartly-dressed couples bracing themselves for the blast of a cross-town breeze. At stoplights people looked around, as if the clear blue sky might at any moment darken and entrap them in a cold drizzle, or worse. Considering that Midtown Manhattan was an on-going construction site/rubble pit just a few blocks away, it was all business as usual. Looking out of the luxurious and well-appointed 5th Avenue shops, you'd never even know there was alien invasion, so long as you kept your eyes from the church doors taped up with "In Memorial" and "Missing" flyers.

Clint Barton would've preferred to take the subway, he would've preferred to walk given how slow and lurching the car rode in traffic. But his cover identity required he arrive in a manner fitting his nature, and he wouldn't want to risk ruining his suit in a cramped subway car or early morning cloudburst. His suit, charcoal-black and narrow cut, was made for him by SHIELD for these kinds of missions. It was full of little tailoring fixes to accommodate someone who might have to go from cocktail reception to running across rooftops. It was the nicest thing he owned and he loved it, even if he never felt completely comfortable wearing it. The car rolled to a stop in front of the austere granite and silver storefront. He got out, dodging a whirl of tourists taking photographs of the engraved sign above the revolving doors: TIFFANY & CO.

Off to the left was Natasha, admiring a small window display of emerald bracelets arranged against white branches. She was eating a bagel in be-gloved hands, hair done up, face obscured by large round sunglasses. Unlike Clint, she looked totally at ease in her little black dress and white purse, as if it had just grown on top of her while she slept. 

"You said you hadn't seen the film." Clint put his hands on hips, then put one against the store window. He never knew what to do with his hands in a suit.

"I lied." She took a finishing bite of her bagel. 

"You watched it last night didn't you?"

Nat's eyebrows somehow did A Thing from behind 900$ worth of vintage Chanel sunglasses. Clint turned to the display Nat was admiring. The emeralds didn't glitter brightly and gaudily like the diamonds. They glowed a hazy bower green, a deep wet forest that turned slowly from leaf to moss and into dense underbrush black.

"I would've taken you for a diamond gal."

Natasha smirked. "Diamonds are vulgar. Industrial material really, completely replicable in the lab, popularity due to intense propaganda and market controls. Not to mention they're supported by a bloody colonial legacy and used to help move money around that people don't want to be seen moving around. You'd be surprised how many of my former clients wanted to be paid in diamonds."

Clint nodded. How did she know that but hadn't seen or heard of Breakfast At Tiffany's until last night?

"Emeralds are rare. The rich color of a perfect emerald is highly prized and difficult to work with. It's a very soft stone, it'll scratch if you look at it wrong. Buying an emerald means taking a commitment to keep it safe." Nat inhaled sharply and turned, taking Clint's arm.

"Diamonds on the other hand are used in drills. It's easy to take care of something tough."

"I always liked the easy way out myself."

"Don't sell yourself short Barton." They walked through the revolving doors, the doorman practically leaping to welcome them. "You should look into an emerald. Many cultures associate them with eyesight and accuracy."

"Can I quote you on that when I have to explain myself to the guys checking our expense sheets?"

"Absolutely."

\------

The pair walked arm in arm around the big airy ground floor, eyes checking corners and patrons while pretending to gaze longingly over perfectly cut and placed piecies of jewerly that cost approximately the amount of a 4 bedroom house in Omaha. 

"INTEL has him leaving his hotel ten minutes ago in a white suit." Nat showed him on her StarkPhone, smiling like she was showing him a picture of a puppy.

Clint swiped through. "Girl with him is holding the bag, that's the drop-off?" Clint zoomed in on the bag. Expsnive, brown leather, silver clasp.

"As far as we know." They walked toward the elevator, smiling past another attendant chomping at the bit to press the button for thier floor and answer questions.

"Silver, please." Nat said before the attendant annouced "GOING UP" and the carriage rose.

"And that -" Clint moved to a close-up of Mikhal's companion. "Is not his wife."

Nat poked him in the ribs for saying that in a crowded elevator, or at all. They walked out into the fifth floor, rows of gleaming cases and polished marble. Clint made a head point to a row of Men's leather bags on the wall, toward the windows.

"Same bag."

"Smart, hide the right bag in inventory?"

"Or just create confusion. Or maybe he likes the finer things in life."

Nat snorted. "Luxury brand extension, you can't afford the full on necklace so you get a charm. You can't buy a hand-made leather bag so you buy one with a name attached. Purchasable status. It's all marketing in the end." 

Clint looked around the room. No white suits in sight.

"You are a deeply cynical person."

"Maybe I just wear my emeralds." Nat pulled her glasses off. "He's not here, floor to floor sweep?"

"On it." Nat walked toward the elevators. Clint jerked his thumb toward the other wall. "I'll take the stairs, cover more ground." Nat nodded and walked toward the elevator bank, not breaking pace to say "Ground floor please" to the attandant before the doors sighed shut.

\-----

Clint Barton, a bit red-faced from doing running-but-not-running laps around the lower floors and dodging more "canIhelpyousir?" than he's had to in his entire life, arrives at the Mezzanine level of Tiffany & Co. It's the smallest floor, dark with low-ceilings, like stepping into a jewelry box. Here lives the special collection, designer pieces and astronomically expensive watches. Just one counter flanked by tiny glass cubes in delicate pin light and low art deco chairs for the (few, select) customers to rest and contemplate their purchases. Leaning against the counter was the vast expanse of a white silk suit jacket above white trousers and glossy black shoes. Next to the suit was a tall woman, blonde hair twisted in a sculptural coil atop her head. She carried a large men's leather bag, the silver clasp glinting in the subdued lighting of the Mezzanine.

"Bullseye" thought Barton. 

\------


	3. Chapter 3

Clint walks toward the pin-lit display cases to the right of the counter. He mimes checking his watch in order to hit the ATTENTION NATASHA button. Mikhal had several watches out on the counter for inspection, each one a miniature masterpiece of clockwork and craft. He paws at them, pushing his mug into their exquisite faces. He grimaced like someone trying not to get swindled. The woman next to him had her smile cemented on, posture stiff, eyes locked on the watches and left hand gripping the bag's leather strap bag hard enough to warp the seams.

A saleswoman materialized. It was noiseless, the Mezzanine's thick carpets drowned any noise above a close whisper.

"Can I help you today sir?" She smiled with her mouth only. Clint stood up straight.

"Yes. I'm looking for something for my wife."

The elevator doors opened. Clint turned and embraced an approaching Natasha. "Wife." He said in her ear.

"This is my wife Olga." Clint could feel Nat's eyes rolling. "And I - WE, are looking for something for our anniversary."

"Oh how wonderful!" The saleswoman's posture softened. "May I ask which anniversary it is?"

"Oh goodness gosh I wouldn't even know." Natasha put on the broadest, biggest Scandawhovian accent known to man. The Swedish Chef had nothing on her. "But it's only been one year, six months, ten days, thirteen hours and-"

Clint put his arm around her waist. "She's a math whiz, really." Natasha smiled, her eyebrow E.S.P kicking in.

*That's for Olga*

"Well we have several pieces suited for commemorating such an occasion." The saleswoman's smile went right up to her eyes as she carefully removed a few necklaces and pins from the case.

The saleswoman continued pattering while Natasha examined each piece and Clint examined Mikhal. Thug, he thought. You can tell by the fingers. Rough hands big enough to fit around a neck. A squinter, and based on the suit, one too proud to wear glasses. Facelift scar behind the ear, close-shaved head to hide balding. He's not nearly as young as he says he is. Just after Nat asked to see "dah silvnyah fings aghain", Mikhal's companion excuses herself to go to the restroom. She walks away quickly and carefully. After a beat, Natasha said she'd be right back to make a decision and followed her into the Ladies.

"So." Clint turns to Mikhal.

"How about them Yankees?"

\-----

The Mezzanine bathroom is small and lined in dark oak, just two wooden stall doors separated by a marble sink before a full-length mirror framed in blooming lilies. Natasha walks in just as Mikhal's companion exists the stall. She's still holding the leather bag. A small OUT OF ORDER sign dangles on the knob as she closes the stall door. She walks to the sink. Natasha follows. They stand side by side at the mirror, touching up their makeup. 

"Beayutaful weathdir, yah?" Nat asks.

"Oh yes, very." She goes back to fussing with her hair with only one hand, the other still locked onto the bag. Nat gets a good look at her. Her hair isn't as well-dyed as it could be, there are roots and split-ends. Her skirt is hemmed badly, not falling right - in fact her whole outfit looked like it was bought and tailored for someone else. Someone of a similar size and build, sure, but not her. But more than anything, she looked nervous. Terrified really. And all her attempts to hide it just made it stand out more. She was made of glass and ready to shatter. 

Okay Nervous thought Natasha. I can work with Nervous.

"You accent is terrible." Nat dropped the Olga.

The woman's hand stopped in mid-primp. 

"Like you're one to talk."

Okay then thought Natasha. Game recognizes game. 

"Mikhal Bezos-Shaw typically travels with Nina Laskaris when he's in the US. You are not Nina Laskaris, although you do look an awful lot like her but I don't think Mikhal looks at women's faces too much." 

The woman's jaw clenched.

"Maybe not Nina but a Laskaris. Sister?"

"Twin."

Nat's eyebrows parted like the sea before Moses. The woman continued.

"Mikhal didn't send you."

"Oh?"

"He's not that smart." The woman tensed visibly, moving back a half-step from the sink and mirror.

"But you are - let me guess Nina switches the bag in the-out-of-order-stall. The new bag contains the pay-off money so no one ever sees a bag-change take place. It's a bag the store sells so no one thinks twice about a lost empty bag. But if everything was going smoothly than Nina would be here."

The woman's eyes darted toward the bathroom door. The cracks started to grow across her glass face.

"There's no money in that bag. It's pulling too hard on the strap. You put something else into the new bag. Something that will make life very difficult for Mikhal's boss when he opens it. You're holding it so steady, are you afraid it's gonna go off?"

The woman took a deep breath. "You're SHIELD."

"What gave it away?"

"You look expensive."

"Why are you doing it?"

"The things he does. The things he does for his bosses, for the pipeline. The things he did to my sister - he thinks he can make it up with silver and wine and watches."

Natasha looked her dead in the eyes. There was fear there, yes, a great beacon, visible from space. But also nerve. Resolve. She was doing this despite being afraid. 

"What's your name?"

"Nedya. Nedya Laskaris."

"Well Nedya Laskaris. I'm Natasha Romanov." Nat dug a card out of her purse. "And if you ever feeling like going straight, give us a call."

Nedya took the card in her free hand. "You're - letting me go?"

Nat walked toward the bathroom door. 

"SHIELD believes in protecting the world and I think you're doing the world a favor."

Nedya nodded.

"We'll be in touch."

\---------

Clint already bought something and was waiting with the iconic blue Tiffany's bag in his lap when Nat returned. After some very elongated-vowel pleasantries, they left, Nat leading Clint back into the Lincoln Town Car that miraculously appeared the instant they left the store. She debriefed him in the car and told him she arranged another team to shadow Mikhal and Nedya to the drop-off. The little blue Tiffany's bag vanished into a SHIELD Secure Object Envelope within seconds of their arrival. Nat never saw it again.

Until three weeks later.

There was a general mission updating with Agent Hill. Routine stuff. Status-report, paper-clip check, etc. Maria Hill talked behind a big flashing tablet.

"Is that all recent missions?" She flicked at an incoming e-mail message.

"Well." Clint took a breath. "There was Breakfast At Tiffany's."

Hill made a noise. Nat looked up from her files. "What about Breakfast At Tiffany's?"

"As I recall we both kind of liked it."

"Yes ..it was a successful mission."

"Well, that's one thing we got." Clint's face was beet red as he breathed through his nose. Hill took a second before composing herself.

"AGENT."

Natasha's eyebrows flew around. "Wha-"

"Worse than talking to Rogers." was all Clint could get out before he started to giggle, which made Hill turn red, which made Nat devise a plan on the spot to kill them both with only a file folder and sheer guts.

The next day a package appeared on Nat's desk after she came back from getting coffee. It was teal blue. It had a white ribbon around it. There was a small note attached. Nat read it.

"DON'T TELL THE EXPENSE ACCOUNT GUYS."

She opened the box. Inside was a small silver Tiffany's pendant shaped like an arrow, one of "dah silvnyah fings" that Olga was cooing over. She put it in her bag.

She decided he gets to live another day. 

\-------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLINT'S WHOLE JOKE: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ClCpfeIELw
> 
> There might be an epilogue


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha Romanov and her date where on the roof of the Metropolitan Opera. They really shouldn't have been up there but he shouldn't have jumped the gun and tried to poison the director of repulsor research during the intermission of 'Rigoletto'. She let him think he was pushing her onto the roof before issuing a few haymakers and ground sweeps on his ass. He righted himself, lunging at her as she twisted her purse strap around her hand and swung the brick-filled Gucci bag at his head. He ducked. She missed. But before she could try again, an arrow point burst out of his eyeball. He fell to the ground, gurgling. They don't show that in movies, the wriggling of a body that doesn't know it's dead yet. The shaft of the arrow stuck out a good half-foot from his skull. A swarm of uniformed SHIELD agents appeared over the top of the roof. She looked in the arrow's path. Nat could just see a small hand in the widow of a nearby apartment tower waving at her. She waved back.

She was approached by some SHIELD officer type. One of the faceless Johns or Jennifers that multiplied and expanded to fill the organization space. They handed her a stack of paperwork, like any government agency SHIELD was mostly about the filling out and filing of forms. 

"How'd it go?" Said the bureaucrat.

"He jumped ahead. I had to improvise. Rutger's safe."

"How was the show?"

"Soprano was a bit flat."

The bureaucrat took the forms as she finished them. Nat looked at the figure in the widow of the near apartment tower. She make a "Drink?" motion with her hand and handed the forms back to the John or Jack or whatever. She walked to the roof access door. 

This was more important than paperwork. This was tradition. 

\---------

The door of Beacon Wine And Spirits on Broadway was propped open when Nat and Clint entered. This was the third liquor store they've been in since meeting in the service driveway of the Opera.

"These guys should have it." Barton walked toward the back of the store, dodging a crowd of well-heeled wine sippers at a tasting.

"We should keep a list."

They were looking for Zwack Unicum, the thick herbal Hungarian liquor in the balloon-shaped black bottle. They had it first in Budapest, on their first real mission even if it wasn't their first official one. Clint was trying to cut back and Nat didn't really care for the taste, but it wasn't about that. It was about tradition. You finish a mission together, you down a bottle of Unicum together. Thankfully Beacon Wine And Spirits had one, just one, on a bottom shelf near the Creme Du Violette and Maraschino Liqueur. 

Clint grabbed the bulbous black bottle and they got into the cashier line. It was just before dinnertime and the store was crammed with impatient Upper West Siders carrying armfuls of oaky Chardonnays or Small batch Ryes.

"Is that the same dress you wore when we had-"

"Don't say it. And yes."

"I like it. It suits you."

"Everything suits me." She said it in her best Black Widow deadpan. Her eyebrows and posture enough to know she was kidding. Figuring out when Natasha was joking was an on-going, life-long process. Clint started to knock the Unicum bottle against his leg. "Whatever happened to Shaw and the other one, the twin?"

"Bezos-Shaw delivered the bag to his boss and it went about as well as you'd expect. They found bits of them in fields for miles around. Nedya got away beforehand and defected to SHIELD inside a week."  
"That's good. So everything's cool now?"

"Eh, typical mob goonery. You take down one boss and two more rise up the ranks and start to fight it out. Half the group thinks the other half wanted them dead and with no pipeline work happening cause everyone is too busy trying to kill each other, the Russians have stepped in and now it's political. Typical."

"So things are worse now?"

"Shaw was a bad guy."

"Yeah but it was stable- doesn't it seem like a big freaking coincidence that we walked into an assassination plot at just the right time?"

"Don't do it Clint, tinfoil is a bad look for you. We got lucky. Shaw was unlucky. And now Nedya has a good chance to make it through her twenties."

They reached the cashier. Clint put the bottle on the counter. "I would've thought you of all people would be more suspicious."

"A sign of a good agent is that they don't see plots and intrigue everywhere. Down that path lies poorly formatted websites."

Clint smiled. "And photos on the wall with strings connecting them."

"Exactly."  
\------  
The woman who used to be called Nedya sat at a metal table in a windowless room across from a dry-faced man in a plain blue suit. He was going over her performance evaluations and exams. She shifted in her seat, hair still coiled atop her head like a golden serpent. 

"Huh." The man flipped the report back to the first page.

"Katherine Grace?"

"It means purity. In the Latin. And for the saint on the wheel."

The man smiled to himself. "Wheel keeps on turning."

Katherine-formerly-Nedya returned the smile. The man signed his name a few times. "It is my honor to declare you a full and authorized field agent of SHIELD Miss Grace. " He stood up and extended his hand. "I look forward to seeing you bringing pride to our organization."

"Thank you sir." She stood and shook his hand. He leaned in closer to pat her on the back and to whisper in her ear, away from the microphones and CCTV cameras 

"Hail Hydra."  
\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS EPILOGUE and easter egg for readers of The Information Operations Division (my other big Avengers fic) (minor Opera note, Rigoletto has an assassination in it) 
> 
> HAIL HYDRA!

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of three.


End file.
